


Women's Jedi Club

by trancer



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Women's Murder Club (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/F, Femslash, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-08-01
Updated: 2008-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trancer/pseuds/trancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two hundred years after the events in 'Return of the Jedi', the Galaxy is in chaos and a new darkness is growing. When women of the fractured Jedi Order are murdered, exiled Jedi Lindsay Boxer is brought back into the fold to help solve the case with the help of a few old friends, and a new one.</p><p>A/N: An incomplete WiP that will probably never be finished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Women's Jedi Club

**** Chapter One ****   


“How much do I owe you?” Lindsay Boxer placed her money pouch on the surface of the dusty and dirty bar.

“On the house.” Nattoo, the bar owner, tossed a rag over his shoulder, his wings fluttering rapidly as he floated towards Lindsay.

“You fall and hit your head?” She eyed the man suspiciously. She'd learned a long time ago - nobody gave away nothing for free, especially a Toydarian.

“You wish,” he snorted cheerfully. “Harvest. I got farmers throwing money at me hand over fist. Besides, you're the only one who ever drinks that stuff. I got fifteen crates in the back and I can't give it away.” He spat on the floor. “Stupid brother. He has the brains of the back end of a bantha.”

Nabooian wormwood, distilled from the eye-worm infested bark of Nabooian tree swamps. A liquor with a muddy and greenish color that smelled like a swamp on a warm, muggy day and tasted about the same. Not that Lindsay cared about the taste, with a proof around the 80 percent mark, she didn't drink wormwood for the flavor.

“Well,” Lindsay smiled. “You ever wanna relieve some more of those crates, you know where to find me.”

“My generosity only extends so far.” He crossed his arms across his tiny chest, his wings fluttering faster. His lips twisted into smile. “500 credits for the entire haul.”

“500 hundred credits!?” Lindsay gaped. “For booze you can't pay people to drink?”

“You're the only one who drinks it. You're the only one who pays for it.”

“I'll just content myself with this.” Lindsay decided not to press her luck. Nattoo could smell money in the air and she didn't feel like being the sucker who gave it to him. She replaced the cork in her bottle, grabbing it by the neck and swinging herself off her barstool.

She bounced drunkenly off the patrons that filled the bar to capacity on her way out. Nattoo was right – it had been a good harvest. A cooler season, cooler for Tattoine, meant an increase in moisture in the air. Lindsay's own vaporators had seen an increase of over 50 percent compared to earlier harvests. After she'd handed over her 'protection share' to the Hutt's then a hefty cut of the remaining profits over to the Order, Lindsay had enough credits remaining to dare thinking about leaving the planet, if only for a couple days.

The twin suns of Tattoine blazed hot and heavy in the mid-afternoon sky. Lindsay pulled on her desert shades to reduce the assault on her already bloodshot eyes. The streets of Mos Espa were teaming with people. Too many people for Lindsay's tastes. Harvest meant money, money meant gambling and, already, she could hear the engines roaring to life at the pod-racing track. She elbowed her way through the crowd, making sure to protect the bottle still dangling from her fingertips.

The crowd thinned to where Lindsay felt like she could finally breathe. Then, something tingled on the back of her neck, the hairs on her forearms began to stand on edge.

Lindsay grimaced at the sight of two hooded figures heading her way – Jedi. For a moment, she thought about ducking into the crowd to avoid them. But she knew they'd find her anyway. They always did. She slowed to a stop, inhaling deeply to quell the anger roiling deep within the pit of her stomach.

“I sent you your money,” she growled.

“And the Order are thankful to you.” He pulled off his hood as he spoke. Lindsay felt her stomach drop to somewhere around her ankles. Master Zia-Ka, a Cerean with pale skin and a large conical skull, smiled politely at Lindsay in the way all Jedi do when what they really meant was 'screw you'. “But we are not here to discuss your exemplary work on our moisture farms.”

“What are you here to discuss?”

“Drinking is forbidden amongst the Order,” the man next to Zia-Ka practically gasped. He was young, human male, no more than several years out of the Jedi Academy, with dark eyes, short cropped hair and the traditional braid behind his right ear.

“Did you forget? I'm not part of The Order.” Lindsay sneered, pulling the cork and taking a long swig from the bottle. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Not anymore.”

Zia-Ka grimaced distastefully. He turned his head slightly to acknowledge the young man who seemed to immediately shrink from his gaze. “Forgive my young Padawan. He's still a bit impetuous. Reminds me of you.”

“I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult.”

“Neither,” Zia-Ka squinted his eyes, the slight hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “Just a mere statement of fact.”

Lindsay sniffed, wiping the underside of her nose with the back of a finger before placing the cork back into the bottle. “If you're not here regarding the moisture profits, why are you here?”

“It's in regards to your..” Zia-Ka paused, almost uncomfortably, “treatments.”

Instinctively, Lindsay's free hand went to the center of her chest. Her fingers scratched surreptitiously across the material of her tunic. “You couldn't have just sent a message?”

“Your regular doctor has been sent on.. urgent business and can't make it,” Zia-Ka explained. “The Order is sending another doctor to administer your medicine.”

“My medicine? Is that what they're calling it these days?”

Zia-Ka inhaled a cleansing breath. “We wanted to ease any initial discomfort that came from switching your doctors unannounced.”

“Really? You came all this way to make sure I didn't get squeamish.” Lindsay lifted her shades to look directly into Zia-Ka's eyes. “Why are you really here?”

“Our business deals with The Order. And, as you so kindly reminded us, you are no longer a part of.” Zia-Ka replaced his hood, his Padawan followed suit. They bowed their heads politely before walking away and into the crowd. Whatever answers Zia-Ka had, he would not give them to Lindsay Boxer. Their conversation was over. “Have a good day, Lindsay Boxer.”

Lindsay followed them with her eyes until they completely disappeared into the crowd. She felt a dull stinging pain deep within her chest. Were she still a Jedi, she could've followed them easily in the heavy crowd, would have felt their presence long before she stumbled upon them in the street.

Were she still a Jedi.

She finally noticed her fingers, still scratching surreptitiously at the center of her chest. She removed her hand, using her fingers to pull the cork from her bottle to take another long swig.

“Bastards,” she slurred thickly before turning on her heel and heading down the street.

**

Lindsay leaned against a wall to still her shaky legs. She took a long pull from her now half-empty bottle. She'd already swallowed a third of the eye-worm larvae that swirled at the bottom, which she'd planned to save for later – when she was home and could pass out on her own bed when the hallucinations began.

Zia-Ka's surprise visit had unnerved her. It had been almost five years since she'd been kicked out of The Order. More than two since she'd seen another Jedi. They'd exiled her to Tattooine for a reason. Nobody visited this godforsaken Hell-hole, not without a good reason. And that reason was typically illegal.

After the fall of the Empire and rise of the Galactic Alliance, peace was short lived in the galaxy. Old squabbles, grudges and territorial pissings, squashed by the iron boot of the Empire, reemerged. Wars, some Civil most otherwise, erupted like wildfires across the galaxy.

The Jedi suffered the worse. Their numbers devastated from fighting war after war, spurred by the anti-Jedi movement and fears of another Order 66, without the guiding and calming hand of the most powerful of Jedi fanaticism spread through its already dwindling numbers. The Order rescinded their position as peace keepers of the Alliance, withdrawing from the galaxy to become a cloistered and secretive community. Many of the Jedi Academies closed their doors. The most damning blow - women were banned from The Order.

Lindsay blinked back tears as she thought back on those days. When the Order built the first academy for females and Lindsay was one of the first handful of new recruits. It was upon her father's insistence that she join the Academy. Deluding herself into thinking she never wanted to be a Jedi, it was something forced upon her by her father, Lindsay rebelled with every fiber of her being.

Now, she wanted nothing more than to be back into the fold. Wanted something she could never have.

“To Hell with the Order!” She spat before pushing herself off the wall and staggering down an alleyway.

The streets were emptying as more and more made their way towards the pod-racing track, Lindsay walking against the tide.

Two young men stood on a small patch of sidewalk. They were dressed similarly – olive-grey trousers with matching tunics and caps, black shoes covered in Tattooine dust. Already, Lindsay could feel her skin starting to crawl.

They called themselves Sympathizers of the Empire.

The Empire had been decimated after the Battle of Yavin, but not destroyed. It had taken centuries for the straggling bands of sympathizers to regain some kind of foothold within the galaxy, with help from the Sith. Within 50 years, they'd gone from 2 members of the Senate to 37. A fraction of the Senate membership but still alarming, a stark representation of the re-rise of the Empire and its growing band of sympathizers. The two young men standing before Lindsay were exactly the type the New Empire preyed upon – young, uneducated, poor, desperate for a future beyond menial farm work.

Lindsay almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

“The Empire saves, the Alliance enslaves,” one of the young men barked as he pushed a flyer in front of Lindsay.

“Seriously?” Lindsay snatched the small piece of paper from the man. “I guess 1 billion dead just wasn't enough.”

“The Empire brought order to the galaxy,” undaunted, his voice grew louder. “What has the Alliance brought us? War, poverty, crime.”

Lindsay crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it at the young man, watching as it bounced off his chest. “Maybe you should try reading a history book every now and then.”

“History perverted and distorted by the Alliance!” He spoke to Lindsay while he looked about, trying to catch the eye and ear of a passerby. “People had jobs under the Empire. Food on their table.”

“Oh please,” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”

Angry, he stepped towards her, jabbing a finger at her chest. “And the Empire made sure people like you knew their place!”

“What did you just say? People like me?”

The other young man stepped between the two, he placed a hand on his friends chest, holding him back. “Easy, Jensen, you're just giving her what she wants. We're above that.”

“A sympathizer to the Empire? You're not above anything.”

Ignoring her, he continued. “She's not the type we'd want in the Empire anyway. Jedi scum.” He sneered at her. “Got kicked out of the Jedi Order. Now she spends her time either getting drunk or cavorting with prostitutes at the Hutt's.”

“Yeah, well at least one of us is having sex. Unless..” She wiggled her finger casually in their direction. “You two are doing each other. Which makes total sense, the Empire was known for it's affinity for young males.”

“Watch your tongue, woman!”

“You watch yours, boy!”

“And what can you, a woman, do to me? Nag me to death?”

Lindsay ripped off her shades, she stepped to the young man, until they were nose to nose. The anger roiled off her in waves. “You wanna know why the Jedi kicked me out? Or maybe you can feel it?”

Lindsay raised her hand, placed it, fingers stretched out, in the space over the his chest. The young man suddenly paled.

“That's your heart. Slowing down. You're having difficulty breathing. That's because your is slowly squeezing in around itself. Like a hand on your neck.”

The man stumbled backwards and fell to his knees; his hands clawed at his neck, his eyes began to bulge, his mouth gaping open as he tried desperately to suck in oxygen.

“What are you doing?” Jensen screamed at her, kneeling next to his friend.

Lindsay stood and smiled, all her attentions focused on the fallen young man.

Suddenly, like lightening striking a target, pain streaked and coursed through Lindsay's body. She stumbled backwards. The connection between her and the young man closed. He wheezed rapidly, sucking in all the air he could into his lungs.

Jensen hurriedly helped his friend to his feet, the two scurrying quickly away from Lindsay. “You crazy bitch!” He shouted before the two disappeared around a corner.

The pain crippling her body continued. Lindsay slumped to her knees. Her hands shot towards her chest, pulling open her tunic. Attached to the center of her chest sat a small metallic circle, no more than two inches in diameter. In the center was a small string of five lights all flickering red.

Three times a year, Lindsay received a dose of ICC-40 which controlled her midi-chlorian levels. But drugs alone couldn't control the force in a fully trained Jedi. The Order called the device an Inhibitor. Lindsay called it torture. Inhibitors were built more than fifty years ago, to control Jedi who'd lost control of their abilities and to keep from losing members to the Dark Side or, worse, the Sith. Use the force and the Inhibitor sent a shock of electricity through the wearer's body. Since the time of its introduction, only five other Jedi had been fitted with Inhibitors – one went insane, three committed suicide and the fifth hadn't been seen nor heard from in twenty years.

Lindsay made history when she became the sixth JedI, and the first female, to be fitted with an Inhibitor.

She slumped onto her back. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lights on the device switched from red to green. There was always the hope that she could be 'rehabilitated' and brought back into the fold. Lindsay tried not to cling to that hope, something that was few and far between in the Bad Lands of the Outer Rim. Lindsay knew if she waited for hope to arrive, to rescue her from the prison of her own body, she'd either be insane.

Or dead.

**

“Master,” Jill Bernhardt spoke into the comm as she brought her skiff out of hyperspace. “We're here.”

The Nabooian craft had been in her family for decades and, despite the best upkeep, its age was starting to show. The engines groaned and whirred loudly as the ship slowed. The streaks of light dancing across her view-screen turned to stars. Jill gripped the controls tighter, the ship shuddering hard and yawing as it entered the atmosphere of the gas giant.

The door to the cockpit opened. Jedi Master Claire Washburn pulled off her hood, taking the open seat next to Jill. “Master?” She smiled with a half-grin.

“Just keeping up with the formalities,” Jill winked.

“I've known you for far too long for such.. formalities.”

“You are the elder stateswoman. Besides,” she shrugged her shoulders, “I know how much it irritates you.”

“Ten years later and you're still going on about that?”

Jill took a hand off the steering wheel, waving her index finger in the air. “One point, you beat me by one point! I still think you cheated.”

“Cheated?” Claire snorted. “Even if you and Lindsay hadn't snuck out the night before to go to that party, I still would have bested the both of you.”

“That one point made all the difference. You were sent to Coruscant,” Jill huffed petulantly. “I was sent to Hoth. Hoth of all places. I still haven't stopped shivering!”

“I heard you knew how to stay warm.”

“What was I supposed to do? Freeze my ass off!!”

“I don't know, wear extra layers.”

Jill tilted her neck coyly. “I did.”

“You should just be glad the Commander was a fan of your.. warming techniques.”

The jovial banter darkened as their thoughts instantaneously turned to something, someone, else. Jill pursed her lips. She'd been lucky. On her own for the first time since graduating from the Academy. The Order had strict rules regarding celibacy, a rule Jill broke at the first opportunity.

Jill pursed her lips trying not to think of what would have happened had she been reported. “Have you heard from Lindsay?”

“No.” Claire folded her arms across her chest. “She stopped responding to my correspondents two years ago. I keep meaning to visit her but things have been so busy. You?”

“Same.” Jill quieted. She decided not to mention that she'd visited Lindsay little more than six weeks ago. The change in the woman had been startling, pale with dark circles under her eyes. She still retained her indomitable spirit, the Inhibitor hadn't broken her as it had the previous Jedi but she was bending. It hurt Jill to see her friend like this. A stark reminder of her own foibles that ran counter to the Jedi Code and how close she'd come to having her own metal disk fitted to her chest. Rather than alert Lindsay to her presence, Jill left without saying a word.

“We should visit her when this is all over,” Jill added.

“Yes,” Claire responded. “We should.”

Suddenly, two twin cloud-cars flanked the skiff. The comm crackled to life.

“Nabooian vessel, state the purpose of your visit.”

Jill clicked on her comm. “We're here on urgent business at the request of Constable Hogan.” She began punching numbers into her console. “I'm sending you our landing permit. We request a priority landing zone.”

The comm's went silent for a moment. “Landing permit accepted. Please follow us.”

The two ships zipped before them. They burst through a large cloud, the city scape of Cloud City came into view. They rushed around the large spires and looming buildings of the floating city, following the cloud-pods until their landing zone came into view.

The ship landed softly. The gangway lowering as the interior door opened. Claire and Jill stepped out onto the platform, hoods raised, hands clasped together inside their wide sleeves, a typical pose of the Jedi.

“Have you been here?” Jill asked.

“Not since Lindsay..”

The doors to the interior opened. Five figures stood in the entranceway. Constable Tom Hogan, flanked by members of the Cloud City Security Force, walked towards the two women across the landing platform. His cape flapped in the heavy breeze that perpetually ensconced Cloud City.

Jill leaned slightly towards Claire. “This should be interesting,” she whispered under her breath.

“Be nice,” Claire whispered back.

Even from a distance, both women could see the noticeable grimace pursing the man's lips. He extended a hand in greeting, the grim line still visible on his face.

“When I sent for members of the Council, I was expecting someone a bit more..”

“Male,” Jill interjected.

“Experienced,” Tom finished.

“I assure you,” Claire removed her hood, Jill following suit. “Master Bernhardt and myself are quite experienced. Unless you want another member of the Jedi Council or,” she nodded her head towards Jill, “member of the Nabooian Royal Family to attend to your urgent and, quite frankly, mysterious needs.”

“My apologies,” he bowed his head respectfully before running a nervous hand over the back of his neck. “It's just the Bespin Government's relationship with the Jedi Council is a bit, as you know, shaky at the moment. Add a murder into the mix..”

“Murder?” Both women spoke simultaneously.

Tom quickly glanced at both women, taking in their expressions. Jedi were trained to mask their true emotions yet neither woman could hide the surprise on both their faces. “They didn't tell you?”

End Chapter One


End file.
